In this issue:

By Alexander Freund: I'm no stranger to competing in National Championships; it's the "winning" part of Nationals that I can never seem to achieve. But this year is different. For many months, my season goal was to win the omnium at Junior Track Nationals, a medley of six different events dispersed over two days, with distances ranging from a 200 meter sprint to a 15 kilometer points race. After eight years of racing my way through the junior category, I knew that this race would be my best shot at becoming a National Champion before I graduate onwards to the significantly more difficult elite level.

By Ken Hill -- Ken Hill wasn't sure about doing this race until Sam Hill and Matthew Daley decided they were going to do the Cat 5 race. Ken was able to mentor the Cat 5 race which allowed him to keep an eye on the Juniors, but also to get his legs opened up. The course was fun except super bumpy.

By Luciano Sponza -- Along with Russ and Gregg, the race starts out as usual in Williams and I see Gregg and Russ in the starting bunch. I knew this race is a little bit about luck when it comes to the flat tires. The first section all goes smoothly, a few guys take flyers off the front - I have no idea why. I was sitting in the waaaay back with my buddy David Mesa from Chica Sexy. I look at him and say, "the plan is, do nothing until we go uphill." He replies, "yeah, just dodge craters." So we're cruising and then bam we hit those craters and things are popping like crazy as usual. Guys are dropping left and right with flat tires but nobody is launching any big time attacks although the pace is high. I didn't have my Powertap but Gregg later told me he was averaging 310 watts so a good pace. When we got to one of those slightly mellow sections before the climb I'm mid pack and a poor squirrel jumps right into the bike in front of me and gets all gnarled up in the rear wheel with blood and guts getting splattered all over. It was really horrible.

By Jim Pavlichek--I completely hated this race last year. Well, not really, but I did feel like how a port-a-potty smells out in the heat. Last year the race was on July 4th weekend and it took 5 hours to get up there the night before. I can't recommend being in a car that long the night before a race. This year was all sorts of different as there was little traffic on the way up. Consequently, my legs felt well rested that night and on race morning. The race was also scheduled to go off at 9am, so the heat was to be less of an issue. I had a spare bottle of electrolyte drink placed for easy pick up at the end of lap 1, but I wound up not needing it.

By Karl Wurzbach and Greg Chapla -- The San Rafael Twilight Criterium is one of the premier races of the season and Greg Chapla, Karl Wurzbach, and Lee Millon of the DBC Masters Race Team represented well.

By Kristen Hill -- In my spare time, last minute, literally....the juniors went racing yesterday. We had decided to skip this race because it is the farthest race we travel to besides San Ardo in August but then the promoter had to send out an email about a $50 gift card to each junior winner...that was all it took to get juniors moving.

Metro Air Parkway to SR 99 ~August 2, 2012 to December 2013~
Starting on Thursday, August 2, 2012 there will be a full closure of West Elverta Road from Metro Air Parkway to State Route 99. The closure is part of the State Route 99 @ Elverta Road Interchange Project. The closure will impact all eastbound and westbound traffic on West Elverta Road including vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles. Elverta Road -- east of State Route 99 -- will not be affected by this closure.